This past summer Nathan Bastian put on his full Devils gear and stepped onto the ice with some young hockey players. Bastian was participating in a hockey clinic, and it was a chance to give back, and help young kids learn the game from some pros who have made it. It's always a big deal for little kids who get that up close and personal time with NHL players, a thrill for any young kid.
And kids just sometimes don't have filters, which is something Bastian learned first hand this summer.
"One kid asked me who I sit next to in the locker room," he said setting up the punchline, "and it sounds like I'm giving him the answer he wants to hear, but it's true.
"I was like 'I sit right between Jack and Timo', and he looked at me and goes 'Sure you do.'"
The little boy was mocking Bastian.
How could he possibly sit next to Jack Hughes and Timo Meier in an NHL locker room?
Well, the joke is on the kid, because Bastian was telling the truth. He is indeed the middleman between Hughes and Meier and he keeps it an animated corner of the room.
Bastian fancies himself as a talker as a stall mate. He doesn't have any real quirks about his routine, he's just, well, a talker.
"I talk a lot," he laughed, "I like to think that's not a bad thing. I sit between Jack and Timo, but I try on game days, maybe to talk a little less, because you know they've got their own stuff. But we have a pretty active corner, I know that Johnny (Marino) is always trying to migrate over and hang with us. And we have to send him back to his area."
